This isn’t the only recent rumbling about changes at J. Crew, which was taken private by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners in 2011 in a deal worth $2.6 billion. Bloomberg recently reported that the casual retailer was talking to investment bankers about a possible public offering.

And Yanai has long been an admirer of J. Crew boss, and former Gap CEO Mickey Drexler. A 2011 profile of Yanai in GQ contained this anecdote, which seemed to sum up Yanai’s feelings toward Drexler.

In the late ’80s, when Gap was in its heyday, Yanai invited the company’s wunderkind president Mickey Drexler to breakfast. Drexler arrived to find a little man peering up at him from a large round table.

“You are my professor,” Yanai told him. “I follow everything you do.”

Of course, a tie-up is far from a done deal. The Journal cautions that the talks between the two retailers are at an early stage and may come to nought.